


Noster nostri

by Only_1_Truth



Series: If Magic Were Known [2]
Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: Blood and Injury, Canon-Typical Violence, Demon Summoning, Demons, Kidnapping, M/M, Summoning Circles, magic is known au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-03
Updated: 2020-01-06
Packaged: 2021-02-27 07:01:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 15,881
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22102999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Only_1_Truth/pseuds/Only_1_Truth
Summary: What if Q didn’t run away - what if he was disowned?What if Q had time to learn glyphs - and applied them to something else?What if instead of becoming a hooker, Q became a Summoner?(Set in the same AU as Part 1 of this series,"The Magic of Christmas,"this story follows the same world-logic - but can be read as a stand-alone.)
Relationships: James Bond/Q
Series: If Magic Were Known [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1590934
Comments: 72
Kudos: 437





	1. A Recipe for Disaster

**Author's Note:**

> Quick note: I use the Americanism of 'jocks' in this fic a bit, because it was convenient. It's a term that might not 100% translate to all readers - but fit this story, so hopefully it doesn't slow anyone's reading :)

Sometimes Q considered it a miracle that he was at university. From the moment his parents had kicked him out of the house, he’d been haunted by the very real possibility of being stranded out on the streets - no roof over his head, no money. Lucky for him, he supposed, that he’d managed to survive his parents long enough to pick up some sellable tricks that didn’t involve desperation and street corners. Hacking really could be quite lucrative, to balance out the fact that it was illegal. Then again, some of the magic that Q had learned since then was even more so - in both dangerousness and legality. 

Sometimes Q wondered where he’d be if his parents weren’t old school. Magic was a commonly accepted part of life, woven into everything from laws to school to even the economy - and yet, he’d been born to religious fanatics who still believed that magic was the devil’s work. It had made Q feel pretty damn bad about himself for quite a while, but when he’d hit his rebellious-teenager-phase and his parents had started threatening to “get the curse out of him” in earnest, he’d started to realize that there was nothing wrong with him and everything wrong with them. Q had really sucked at being rebellious, though, so at first he just rebelled in totally mundane ways by learning how to break through firewalls and code viruses. It wasn’t until he was nearly seventeen that he’d finally done something magically disobedient - but by then, he’d gotten the hang of both the magic thing and the rebellion thing. Online classes and screaming parents could be quite an explosive combo, surprisingly - knowledge on one hand and motivation on the other. Q had ended up summoning a minor imp right into their living room. At that point, his parents stopped threatening to fix him and just declared him unfixable, and being disowned was honestly the best thing that could have happened to him.

Life hadn’t been smooth sailing from there, but at least Q had had time to sort of plan his exit. So by the time he pulled his little stunt and got kicked out, he’d already found a few friends’ couches to sleep on. Getting into university wasn’t that hard when he’d already been online studying behind his parent’s backs, and saving up money from hacking jobs they hadn’t even known he was doing when he holed himself away in his room. 

Still, Q would have been pretty down on his luck if he hadn’t been selling his magically knowledge along with his technical skills. 

Because the thing was… Q was legitimately good at summoning. Initially, he’d looked into summoning for shallow reasons: he knew that his parents would hate it enough to lose their fucking minds. The fact that it was illegal was just the cherry on top. Q had known that when he was ready to leave home, he’d have to cut _all ties_ instantly, or risk his parents trying to reel him back in again, and summoning a literal hellbeing seemed like a good way to do that. After that stunt, though, he’d had to admit that he rather liked summoning. It had… a lot of logic to it. 

To be fair, what Q really liked about summoning was the written side of things - the glyph-work. So when he got into Uni, it was on a Glyphist scholarship, and he was currently well on his way to graduating at the top of his class. All written spellwork fascinated him because it was a lot like code, really: you designed the correct input, and you could get a very specific, controllable output. And it was the same for summoning, too, really. Only idiots ended up getting eaten alive by the thing they’d summoned. Or else they got too bold and got caught by the government, who had a very, very low opinion on summoners. 

Q was a smart summoner, though. He enjoyed having enough money to live comfortably while studying, but he didn’t like the idea of being dead, incarcerated, or stripped of his magic. So in actuality, Q did very, very little summoning - _but_ he could whip up a diagram for just about any kind of summoning a person could ask for, if they paid him enough. He knew the theory and he knew the rules, and he’d practiced just enough of it to speak with authority when he gave advice on the matter. Smart. And like with his hacking, Q always covered his tracks and made sure that nothing - demonic or otherwise - came back to bite him.

Of course, not everyone who came to him for advice was so smart. 

It all started with a bunch of frat boys wanting to know how to set up a summoning circle. Q started with the usual answers he gave to that kind of idiocy: he played dumb, explaining how it was dangerous and illegal in excruciatin detail, like the good little book-nerd that he was. Generally speaking, if Q was paid enough, he didn’t trouble himself with questions like “What will this person do with the knowledge I give them?” because usually, it took a lot more than a novice’s skill to summon anything truly dangerous. Q could do it, but the people who heard about him and came sniffing around for summoner-designs rarely could. So usually, at worst, they summoned something that caused a small fire and ate the neighbor’s dog, and then the police were called. Thanks to a handy little oathkeeper glyph that Q had perfected, however, no one could ever tell on him, and in return he didn’t tell on them either. All of his clients had to agree to those conditions. Q was used to controlling the situation that way.

What he wasn’t used to was a bunch of stupid jocks pulling one over on him, and taking that control away.

It started when they didn’t believe his feigned ignorance. Fine. If they wanted to play that way, Q could admit that he peddled illegal magical knowledge - but, like everyone else, they had to accept his terms and agree to pay him. That went surprisingly okay. Everyone allowed Q to paint a little glyph onto their palms (a matching one sinking into his, all of them fading as soon as the magic activated) that would keep them from tattling on each other, and then Q charged them double his usual rate because they were so full of hubris that he literally couldn’t stand it. So, having said that he’d help them with some research, they all talked for a bit and then went their separate ways - Q to translate the old book they’d given him, and the jocks to do… whatever it was that jocks did. He’d heard them talking about a party that was “going to be totally lit” and had stopped listening. 

Of course, the stuff they’d wanted him to research was epically dark stuff. 

It had all seemed so harmless at first. The story was, they’d gotten this book at a second-hand bookstore because the owner hadn’t realized what he had, because it was all in Latin (definitely a lie; bookstore owners in the area tended to know their stuff, and those frat boys certainly had never voluntarily stepped foot in a bookstore). The jocks, however, had managed to translate just enough to know that they had a book on summoning. The book was pretty ragged, missing a lot of pages, but something called a _noster nostri_ summoning ritual was at least partially complete. They wanted Q to translate it fully, and fill in the gaps left by mouse-gnawed and missing pages. Q knew enough Latin to recognize _noster nostri_ in his sleep, and “our hearts beat as one” didn’t sound that bad, so far as summoning went. He expected a minor spirit-twinning rather than a proper demon-calling, and was barely interested enough to keep reading. 

Just a page in, however, and he realized that this was most definitely not minor, and not harmless. 

When he met up with the jocks a week later, having been trying to call them for days now to say that this was crazy and they shouldn’t do this unless they all wanted to die (or, at least, one of them to die), Q tried to make them see sense. Usually, he let his customers be idiots if they wanted to - but he also made sure that they knew all of the repercussions. The other young men seemed more interested in going out for drinks than talking about the lethal repercussions of a very, _very_ serious summoning ritual, however, so Q ended up being more or less bullied into following them to the bar. Apparently, if he wanted to talk to them, the nerd would have to following the popular kids to their native hunting grounds.

And that’s when things went downhill.

Q hadn’t really intended on giving these bastards their money’s worth. Firstly - they were stuck up, and he hated them. At least two of them he remembered actually bullying him before, at least until they’d realized that the computer nerd was also the edgy, secret summoning dude. And secondly - because this went too far. This would end in someone dead. But he was having to practically yell over people at the bar, and it definitely seemed like the other boys had selective hearing problems because whenever he told them the risks, they just asked for him to talk more about the process. 

So he clammed up. No, he wasn’t going to do this. 

Then, for some stupid reason that he couldn’t for the life of him fathom, his mouth started moving again. And one of the jocks - one of those that had bullied him in the past - grinned. “Gotcha, nerd,” the fellow said, and it wasn’t for a few more stunned blinks that Q realized that they’d put something in his drink.

He hadn’t been rufied. That was sort of a relief, but not really, because the magical equivalent was worse, and from that point on Q found it impossible to lie - one of the jocks, he found out later, came from a family of hedgewitches, and was very, very good at biologically-bound curses. Basically, Q had swallowed a truth-curse. When he tried to just stop talking (a viable way around the curse, actually), that’s when the other boys got in on it, and Q began to realize that he’d bitten off more than he could chew. 

They all ended up leaving the bar, but it wasn’t because Q wanted to. With four of them and one of Q, and with Q’s magic not exactly the combative kind (he knew some incredibly impressive types of magic, but they were all the written kind, and he didn’t exactly have time to draw up a blasting glyph on the spot), it wasn’t hard for the four larger boys to drag Q out the back before anyone could even notice. After that, they pretty much had what they wanted: someone who could translate Latin, and who could map out an incredibly detailed summoning circle capable of calling forth a higher demon entirely into the mortal plane.

That broke so many of Q’s rules. 

First rule: never summon anything big. Even when he’d summoned a demon to shock his parents, it had been something relatively harmless, so that even if it had gotten loose of Q’s at-that-point-novice control, it couldn’t have done any real harm to anyone. It just looked ugly. This _noster nostri_ ritual, however… it was designed specifically to drag up something big. 

Second rule: never open the door, just pull back the curtains to peak in. Most summoning wasn’t really 100% summoning - it just included thinning the veil between realms a bit, unfogging the glass and asking a demon to step up on the other side. It was like… visiting someone in prison, and talking to them through the phone, with bulletproof glass in between you. You could talk to a lot of demons and spirits and netherbeings that way, and usually that was the kind of information Q gave people. No one ever truly realized that they’d been staring at a demon who wasn’t actually there. Summoning: it was the old-school version of holographic technology. This ritual, though, most certainly wasn’t. Q had actually never had his hands on a text that explained how to do a full-on door-open summoning, and it scared the shit out of him. 

Third rule: never let your summoning run long. Even if you were just gazing through a window at the thing you’d called out to, it was dangerous to give that thing too much time. Demons especially were very smart. This _noster nostri_ ritual… actually, it did follow that rule. But not in a good way. 

“It translates to ‘our hearts beat as one’-” Q tried to tell them, after he’d been dragged into the back of one of their cars and told that he was going to help them do this, “-Because the ritual fucking stops when someone’s heartbeat stops!” While Q had been shouting furiously, he’d just been laughed off. The car started moving, and Q couldn’t jump out because he had athletic guys on either side of him, holding his arms tight enough to bruise. 

Q tried to explain the rest as the car moved through traffic - tried to get it through their thick skulls as he was dragged out of the car and towards an old mansion at the edge of the city. He stopped trying to get them to see reason when one of them pulled out a gun and aimed it at his head, however. As much as Q feared the idea of summoning a demon, that fear was still somewhat more removed than the immediate threat of a bullet through the skull. So, feeling frightened and stunned, Q decided to just play along for now and hope that he’d seen an escape attempt later. He was still suffering from the truth-curse, so lying was impossible, but he was allowed to be silent when he numbly took the piece of chalk they handed him. By this point, they’d gotten into the mansion’s basement and found a broad, open room that was entirely too perfect for a summoning. The only furniture was a big, sturdy, low table, and with the threat of a bullet still hanging over him, Q began circumscribing a circle around it. 

He wanted to do it wrong, to mess it up, but two things stopped him: firstly, the jocks were smart enough to ask him, point-blank, if he was sabotaging the summoning circle. When Q tried to lie, his throat closed up and only a squeak came out - when Q tried to just not answer, someone came forward and either punched him or threatened to do so. That, and one of the jocks had apparently done some of his own homework, or at least knew enough to understand a proper magical circle. The bastard was probably a Glyphist; Q hadn’t seen him in any of his classes, but then again, Q was in the advanced courses. Still, Jerk #2 (the guy with the gun could be Jerk #1) knew enough about the Arc Arcana (the Glyphist’s alphabet) to see when Q started flubbing up a letter. Of course, Q realized that even if there was an easy way to mess up the ritual, that wasn’t a guarantee that the night wouldn’t end like a horror movie - it could make it worse, actually. A lot of horror stories started when a summoning was done badly. Q at least knew how to do it well, and so he finally gave in, drawing up the schematics that he’d learned from that damned book and building a circle for the _noster nostri_ ritual. 

He’d tried explaining more of the details off and on during this time, but by this point, he was mostly just told to shut up. They’d heard enough, they said. They understood. If they had more questions, they’d ask. Q wanted to say, ‘ _You don’t know enough to even ask the right questions_ ,’ but was already feeling bruised and threatened enough that he didn’t feel like angering anyone further.

“There. I did it. Happy now?” he finally spat, having gone through countless sticks of chalk so that his hands were basically powdered white now. Beneath his sharp glare and rigid stance, he started looking around, eyeing possible exits. If they were going to start making use of this circle, he wanted to be nowhere near this. Q was okay with doing illegal stuff, but he was _not_ okay with sacrificial higher-demon summoning…

By the manic glint in Jerk #1’s eyes - and echoed in the eyes of the other three - they most certainly were. 

“Tell me again that you made the circle perfectly from the book,” Jerk #1 said, gesturing at the circle. It was a massive piece of work, a whole liturgy of glyphs tangling and twisting all around it; under other circumstances, Q would actually have been immensely proud of it.

Instead, it was with great loathing that Q gave up the truth, “I did.” God, he hated this truth-business; he was shocked by how exposed it made him feel, unable to hide behind a lie, no matter how much he wanted to. The hedgewitch boy snickered like he knew it. 

Jerk #1 still had the gun, but he lowered it, looking pleased. “And have you lied to us about anything else you translated from the book?”

“You know I haven’t,” Q muttered darkly. He tensed and twisted as another of the jocks stepped up to him - but it was only to take away his chalk. Apparently, they were not so stupid as to realize that a glyphist like Q could use writing utensils as weapons. Q was still tempted to dive to the floor and try writing out a fire-glyph with his chalk-dusted fingers, but he didn’t like his chances. Chalky-fingers were not dependable writing tools, and Jerk #1 seemed pretty comfortable with that gun. Plus, anyone still considering using the _noster nostri_ ritual after all that Q had said about it was more than merciless enough to shoot a person. So Q just stood sullenly and tensely as his chalk was taken away. 

The jerk with the gun looked over at Jerk #2, and it was only when Q turned his head as well that he realized the other Glyphist was going through his bag. A lot of his notes had been in there, and he swore quietly. Jerk #1 just smiled and called out to his friend, “Hey, Ernst, do you understand the next part of the ritual?”

Waving a few pages of paper, Jerk #2 - Ernst - grinned back. “Well enough. This shit’s much simpler than the circle.” Playful eyes flicked Q’s way, “Ta, Q.”

Grinding his teeth for a moment to resist the urge to say what was on his mind (with the truth-curse, he’d say _all_ of what was on his mind, and probably get beaten to death for it), Q eventually answered with a modicum of decorum, “That’s just great. Can I go now then? That oathkeeper glyph protects you as much as me - I can’t go and rat on you once I leave.” For once, the curse he was under was useful: everyone knew that that was the absolute truth. In fact, everyone even looked over at Jerk #3, the hedgewitch, who just sort of shrugged and then nodded, confirming that his little curse was still in effect. Q turned to look rebelliously at the gun-wielding Jerk #1, daring him to argue.

There was something menacing in the other young man’s eyes. Auric was his name, if Q bothered to remember. “Yeah, fine,” Auric surprised Q by saying. He tucked the gun away in the back of his trousers. “I think that between your notes and what Ernst has managed to figure out himself, we’ve got this covered.” Q’s body didn’t know whether to relax into a puddle of relief, or tense up to run away from this unfolding atrocity as fast as he possibly could. 

But then Auric pulled out a knife to replace his gun, and still with that same heartless smile he said, “Hugo, Julius, do you think you could hold Q a sec? I just thought of another way that he could be useful.”

No. Nonononono. The words started in Q’s head and ended up coming out of his mouth, but when he tried to bolt, two young men a lot stronger than him were already prepared to grab him. Q was not an athletic individual - he didn’t have the genetics for it, and had learned early on that his brains would take him farther than his brawn in this world. He lost his glasses at some point in the ensuing struggle, heightening the sense of helplessness as his eyesight went out the proverbial window as well. Still fighting, Q struggled and lashed out until someone got an arm around his windpipe, and then suddenly air became hard to come by. Hollers of furious desperation became snarls became frightened gasps as he tried to claw away the arm choking him out. In shockingly little time, however, the world was going fuzzy and dark around the edges, and it was a minor miracle that Q still held some semblance of consciousness when he was let go. Dropping to an undignified, gasping heap on the floor, Q barely even felt the painful sting of his knees hitting concrete, and he certainly had a lot less fight in him when Hugo and Julius each took one of his arms and started to drag him forward. 

Q was tossed carelessly forward, and fell half across the table. Still trying to make up for lost oxygen, Q couldn’t complain, and would have slid right back off onto the floor again had not someone else grabbed his wrists, pulling forward. Everything had the surreality of a nightmare as he felt rope around his wrists, binding them together and looping the trailing ends to presumably one of the far table-legs; meanwhile, the others cut and tore at Q’s shirt, making quick work of it until Q felt cold air kiss his back. Still dazed, Q nonetheless knew what was coming next - he’d read the entire ritual, after all. He mewled out another weak “No” and tried to pull away, but the rope on his hands kept him bent in half over the table, and his legs were still too shaky to do any proper kicking. 

“Here, Ernst,” Auric said, and Q didn’t have to turn to know that the knife was being handed over. The next step required both knifework and glyphwork, and Q was not going to enjoy this. “Don’t mess up now, okay?”

Ernst made an offended scoffing noise, even as Q felt a hand brace against his back. The touch felt hot and horrid against his bared skin. “Come on, it’s not like I’m rewriting the Arcana here. The nerd already did the hard work. All I have to do is copy his work and remember the correct punctuation.”

One of the others, maybe Julius, chuckled, “Sounds like every day in Charms class to me.” There was more laughter to echo that thought, and Q gathered himself enough to growl something colorfully rude at them before his breath was taken away by the press of something sharp against his skin. Q swore a whole lot louder until the pain took his breath away, Ernst carving the next step of the ritual right into the skin of Q’s back. It was more pain than Q had ever dealt with in his life, and to his great shock and shame, he was soon screaming. 

“It’s all right,” Auric assured his cronies as the sound echoed around them, “My aunt owns this property - and she’s been dead a year now.” More laughter. This was what happened when psychopaths found each other. However, if Q hadn’t been so busy screaming, he might have been able to ask these bastards if they knew what they were doing - and if they knew that they were royally fucking up this ritual already. 

Before long, Q could feel his own blood trickling hotly down his spine and around his ribs. The pain had finally reached a point where Q’s brain had recoiled from it, and he found himself floating in a numb sort of space in his head; his breaths and heartbeat echoed too loudly, and he wondered if this was how it felt to go into shock. He was still dazedly pondering that, panting, when a hand in his hair dragged his head up sharply. Q didn’t even remember when he’d started resting his face against the table. It was Auric, leaning over and looking at him now. The leader smiled at Q in a dispassionate sort of way - Q had never meant anything to him, just a convenient means to an end - but asked of his comrade, “Done there, Ernst?”

“Almost. Gotta get the last sentence in. ‘ _This be the gateway’_ and all that shit.”

Q’s brain was admittedly pretty fuzzy, but he blinked and frowned, because that wasn’t what those glyphs actually translated to. If Ernst really was following his notes (and since he’d been digging through Q’s bag, he probably was), then he’d actually be writing… Q’s mind stopped following that thought as Auric’s fingers tightened in his hair, the little sparks of responding pain managing to get through the general, burning agony of Q’s back somehow. Q bared his teeth in a wince. 

“No hard feelings, Q,” Auric said, flashing a smile that no doubt allowed him to pass some of his classes. It was a handsome smile when you didn’t know the ugly that was underneath. “You see, we actually knew that someone had to die for this ritual, and none of us were particularly keen.” Auric’s free hand patted Q’s cheek, and Q tried to flinch away. Meanwhile, his brain tried to recollect if he’d told Auric that… because it wasn’t entirely true. Not if you did it right, anyway, which was seeming monumentally unlikely now that these four maniacs had taken over. 

Ernst, still cutting, swore as his ‘canvas’ moved. Apparently it didn’t mess him up too badly, though, because he kept going. Q couldn’t stop the keening noise that came out of him as he felt a long line being drawn down his back, feeling as though it was peeling away skin right down to his vertebrae. Auric calmly talked over him, “Just think - you’ll be part of something greater now, as bait for a demon. It’s a pivotal role. Every second that that demon is under my control, I’ll think of you.”

“You arseholes don’t know what you’re doing,” Q managed to pant out, even as he accepted the horrifying fact that this ritual was messed up beyond repair. He didn’t have the mental capacity or the strength to even begin to explain how - and these imbeciles didn’t have the brains to listen. 

“Done,” Ernst proclaimed, and Q heard blood spatter as he no doubt gave his hands a shake, muttering, “Such a damn mess.”

Q managed to look to the side (Auric still had a painfully tight grip on his hair) enough to see drops of his blood getting everywhere as Ernst walked away, towards the edge of the protective circle. Realizing that blood was still being trailed everywhere, and could cause a lot of trouble if it left the containment… honestly, Q wasn’t sure what the result would be, since the ritual was already so far off-script… Q opened his mouth to shout a warning. Before he could do it, however, Auric’s grip on him tightened and suddenly Q felt a new pain that shocked him down to his very bones. 

Ernst hadn’t left with the knife. 

He’d given it to Auric.

And Auric had used the tip to part the skin of Q’s throat.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just when Q's day can't get worse... they manage to summon a demon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Congrats to those of you who guessed what (or rather who) was going to appear in this chapter ;)

While Q made a choking noise of panic as he felt a new source of blood hotly escaping his body, Auric let go of him, after giving Q’s thrashing, bound arms a pat. “There. It’s the beginning of the end now, Q. Just sit tight, and it’ll all be over soon.”

Too little too late, Q tried to sputter that that wasn’t how this worked - and the truth-curse wouldn't let him lie about that - but Auric and the others were already smartly trotting away. The one part of the ritual that they’d interpreted correctly was that blood would call the demon, and they knew not to be inside the circle when that happened. 

Q wasn’t supposed to be inside the circle either, though. 

So, _so_ much of this wasn't supposed to be happening as it was.

Feeling a curtain of blood slowly spreading down his neck and spattering into the table (not gushing out at least, but still a mortal wound), Q tugged on his bindings with fading strength and tried… and failed… to anticipate what would happen next. Maybe they’d messed up the ritual enough that it wouldn’t even work? 

That hope was dashed when Q heard a low groaning noise, almost subsonic. He’d heard it often enough before to know what it meant, and sagged against the table defeatedly in response. It was the sound of reality protesting the weight of something hellish, as two realms were pulled too close together for comfort. Distantly, Q heard Auric, Hugo, Julius, and Ernst make noises of excitement and triumph, but Q just rested his head against the table between his arms, not needing to look to know that he’d see a huge crack in reality starting up. Even when he closed his eyes, resignation and fear battling for control in his chest, Q saw the searing light of a doorway opening up just in front of him. Definitely not just a window, definitely no bulletproof glass in between for safety - a full-blown door between here and Hell. 

Feeling his strength rapidly giving way, Q finally gave in to the temptation to look up when the groaning noise of angry reality faded. Behind him, Hugo gave a whoop like he’d won something. 

Standing on the other side of the table from Q, the air still subtly warped behind him, was a blond-haired, blue-eyed man in a three-piece suit. He’d have been indistinguishable from a human, really, were it not for the sixteen-foot wingspan and same-length tail stretched out behind him. Q was able to do nothing but stare, glad that he’d made the circle a big one. As it was, both wings and tail had to recoil as they touched the edges of the summoning circle and the magic flared bright gold to rebuff the contact. The demon’s head turned, and his expression looked mildly irked, even as quick, keen eyes took everything in. 

Q, still very much bleeding out and probably in shock, lost some of his ability to focus then, and dropped his head back to the table with a whimper before he could see the demon’s pale-blue eyes flick to him. 

Auric, apparently the chosen spokesperson for the stupid parade, called out boldly, “Do you know why you’re here, demon?” The hubris was enough to make Q wince in second-hand embarrassment. The boffin twitched a bit, trying to move into a less compromising position as he heard the faint noises of the demon moving around; by the occasional crackles of magic, he was testing out the containment circle. 

Surprisingly, the demon not only answered, but in a remarkably polite tone. “Oh, I might have an inkling,” the demon replied in a low voice, his accent British and almost as posh as Q’s. There was another sizzle of magic as the circle was tested, and the demon made a thoughtful noise instead of growing incensed at the confinement. Q turned his head, hating the way it made more blood tangibly slick his skin, and saw that the demon had his wings pulled in now, and was merely regarding the circle with one hand on his hip and the other on his chin. His golden hair was a bit tousled, but otherwise he carried himself like an upper-crust gentleman. 

Starting to feel lightheaded, Q shivered and let his head drop to the table once more. He knew that this cheek was resting in his own blood, and tried to ignore that. If he were truly brave, perhaps he’d jerk his head around to speed up his own exsanguination so that he could send the demon back to Hell with his death, but apparently Q wasn’t really the selfless-martyr type. 

Just as one of the jocks took in a breath to speak again, the demon - with immaculate timing - spoke again himself, “I am rather surprised that you left one of your compatriots inside the circle, however.” Oh damn, chances were high that Q wasn’t going to be ignored for much longer. Q squeezed his eyes shut and shifted his hands, bracing himself even as he heard the demon draw near, the soft noise of shifting leathery wings counterbalanced with the tap-tap of fine shoes. Demons had a lot of control over their appearance, and apparently this one had chosen to appear both charming and monstrous at the same time. 

The demon stopped short of Q, however, when Auric called out lackadaisically, “Had to have some good bait to draw you in, didn’t we?”

The demon made a noise between thoughtful and displeased, but at least he moved back towards the edge of the circle. “Well, you did draw me in, didn’t you?” he said in a voice that was like a low purr. Then it got lower, and more dangerous. “And I suppose we all have to contend with the repercussions of those actions, don’t we?” And then Q began to hear the crackle of magic being tested again, only this time instead of breaking off as the demon withdrew, it grew more intense, and there was that sound of reality straining again. Q knew the feel of demonic magic almost as well as his own, and he flinched even as the noise grew louder and more horrific - the demon pitting its full strength against the barrier of Q’s summoning circle. It lead to a groaning like icebergs breaking, a note so low that it hit Q right in the chest like some pressure trying to crack his sternum from his ribs. He actually cried out and heard the other boys doing the same, right before the noise crescendoed to a sound like metal being sheared off. That was the end of it, though, the final noise apparently being the demon disengaging. Q turned his head, curiosity too great to ignore, and saw the demon looking at one raised hand - and the summoning circle thankfully still intact. The really unsettling thing, though, was that the demon’s left hand was blackened from the palm up - at first, Q thought that the magic of the circle had scorched the demon’s fingers to charcoal, but then he realized that he was just looking at the demon’s glamour being stripped away. The brief magical battle had shredded the facade of humanness, leaving behind taloned fingers the color of tar. 

For all the world unconcerned, the demon nodded his head and said, “My compliments to the maker of this summoning circle.” 

It perhaps said something about how much blood Q had lost that he was secretly a bit chuffed right then. 

“So,” the demon went on, tone still patient. Q could see that at least Auric’s cronies were finishing the job on the circle - in order to complete the ritual, it was necessary to augment the outside of the circle. “What’s the plan then? I imagine you have an endgame here besides just chatting with me.” There was a slither of noise, and then Q jumped as something touched the backs of his ankles - the demon’s tail, it turned out, rippling in a slow undulation. “And giving me some quality time with this unfortunate soul here.”

Q shivered and tried to become invisible. That task became difficult when the demon’s tail looped around both of his ankles. 

Auric, clearly in his element, was quick to reply, “Why, I hope to enslave you to my will, of course. _Our_ will.” He was quick to make that amendment, but Q rolled his eyes at the table, because he could see where this was going. Julius, Ernst, and Hugo were unlikely to ever see any demonic perks, and Auric would very likely to try to kill them later. What a lovely, functional group of friends…

Unexpectedly, the demon let out a deep, regretful sigh. A painful glance back (both the wound at his throat and his those at his back protesting) and Q could see the demon putting his good hand into his pocket. His damaged hand he gave a few shakes as if shedding water, and to Q’s surprise, the glamor fell back in place like it had never been shredded. Swallowing uncomfortably, Q began to realize just how strong this demon was. “I was afraid you’d say that,” he said with a calm sort of weariness. 

Never one to be outdone, the hedgewitch kid snarked back, “You’d better be afraid!” and Q resisted the urge to bang his forehead against the table. The demon just chuckled, an unsettlingly pleasant sound. 

Apparently deciding not to respond to that, the demon turning back towards Auric, asking idly, “What’s your name, human?” His other hand, perfectly normal again, also slid into one pocket. The demon adopted a lazy stance, feet spread, wings tucked almost politely up against his back. His tail continued to slither about Q’s calves, but it was hard to be too bothered by that when his back was a brand of pain and he could feel himself steadily slipping away from the gash on his throat. 

Auric, predictably, was an arsehole about answering. “You can call me ‘Master’ in a few minutes.” Around the circle, Hugo, Ernst, and Julius were making swift progress - far faster progress than one person alone would make, although speed did not equate to skill when it came to glyph-work. Then again, the whole ritual had gone so terribly awry that Q didn’t know if any augmentation to the circle would have the predicted effect. One way or another, the demon didn’t seem affected, which was a bad sign - changing the circle _should_ have affected its demonic occupant. “And what do I call you?”

The demon tilted its blond head, making a considering noise even as hands came out of pockets, arms crossing instead. “How about… James?”

It hurt to keep his head turned, because Auric and ‘James’ were directly behind him, but even with his forehead resting against the bloody table again, Q could imagine Auric’s displeased face. “James?” Auric parroted back with evident annoyance, “That’s not even a demonic name.”

“I thought we were both giving each other utterly improper titles for one another - my mistake,” the demon retorted smoothly, and Q couldn’t help it: he wheezed out a tiny little laugh. It turned into a cough, and he had a moment where he was afraid he was coughing up blood. As it was, there was so much blood in front of his face that there was really no way to know, and his screaming had left his throat raw and phlegmy anyway. 

Whether or not his windpipe had been nicked became immaterial as footsteps heralded the demon coming closer again, and this time ‘James’ (or whatever his name really was) didn’t seem like he was going to turn away again. _‘Shit_ ,’ Q said in his head, then began to repeat it a few times even as he once again tried and failed to get into anything resembling a defensive - or even presentable - position. The bindings on his wrist were too tight, though, and if this were a sexy situation, perhaps Q would have had fewer complaints, but right now he most emphatically did not want to be bent over a table with a Higher Demon wandering around. 

The demon’s words had effectively bitchslapped Auric into temporary silence, although the other three snickered a bit. After a bit of hissy squabbling, Auric raised his voice again, though, trying to regain control of the situation, “Oh! Oh, go ahead and kill him now, I don’t care!” Q ground his teeth together and pressed his forehead against the table, because ‘him’ was clearly Q. “Because guess what, demon? You’ve already fallen into my trap!”

Good god, if Q had realized that Auric was so melodramatic, he’d never have agreed to work with him, not even for triple his usual price. Thankfully, James didn’t seem all that impressed by the theatrics either, and drawled even as he kept slowly padding Q’s way, “I didn’t _fall_ anywhere. I was drawn here by a remarkably well-drawn Summoning circle.” This time, when the demon stopped, he right was right by Q’s side, and the boffin just kept his head down and froze. There were a lot worse ways to die than from slow exsanguination, and demons knew all of those ways. When he felt what was perhaps a hand touching his side, he flinched hard and then hissed between his teeth as a fingertip slid towards one of the glyphs carved into his back. Sounding dubious, James went on, “Technically, these glyphs drew me in, too, but looking now at their craftsmanship, I can’t imagine why.” Then, to Q’s bewilderment, the demon caught the edges of Q’s torn shirt and folded them back over the Summoner’s back. The torn edges immediately stuck to the blood, and it fucking _hurt_ , but a dazed part of Q’s mind also realized that this would help staunch the bleeding a bit. While Q was still trying to puzzle out whether that was an intended side-effect or not, James guessed keenly, “I take it that the person who made the circle didn’t make these?” He sat down on the edge of the table directly to Q’s left. 

Oh, Auric was peeved now. Despite his own exhaustion, impending death, and the demon sitting scant centimeters away, Q turned his head to look over his right shoulder just to catch Auric’s expression. It was worth it: the jock was purpling with rage, and he was clearly itching for the gun in his belt. Q felt the manic urge to giggle, but since his body was starting to feel weak and cold, he probably didn’t really have anything to laugh about. 

Auric snarled, “That doesn’t matter, _demon,_ because all of those glyphs have already done their job. All I needed was to get you into this fucking circle, and then for Q to stay alive long enough for me to complete the rest of the ritual.” He gestured at Julius, Hugo, and Ernst, who were standing up now and dusting chalk off their hands, tasks completed. “Now, as soon as Q dies, the ritual is complete - and then you’ll be my _hellbitch._ ”

“Ahhhh, I see now,” James said, still sounding the opposite of bothered. If anything, he sounded like a tolerant adult faced with a stupidly rude child, and he knew that society would frown on him if he punted said child. Meanwhile, Q was sagging against the table again, left cheek against bloodied wood and a frown on his face, because that was most definitely not how the _noster nostri_ ritual went. He was pretty sure that he’d explained that to them, but once more, Auric and co. were showing that they had selective hearing problems. Jarring Q from his thoughts was the leathery rustling above his head, and suddenly Q glanced up and sucked in a startled breath - there was a wing stretching over him. “So you’re saying,” James went on, even as his left wing created a canopy all across the table, like a gentleman shaking out his cloak behind him, “that so long as - Q, did you call him? - is alive, then the ritual isn’t complete yet?”

There was such silence, you could have heard a pin drop. Then Julius muttered, “Dammit,” and that pretty much summed up the situation. Of course, Q already knew that “Dammit” had described the situation ages ago, so who knew whether the demon’s logic even held up anymore? Still, based on what Auric had said, the demon had a point. 

“That’s not what I said-!” Auric belatedly shouted back after the silence had already spoken for him.

James cut him off smoothly, “That _is_ what you said.” He sounded so tolerant. He also reached out a hand, and Q made a distressed squeak as he felt a palm brush his hair, and then fingers curl and wrap around his throat. They squeezed down and Q started to panic, but unlike the chokehold from earlier, the pressure stopped before it cut off all his air. Q still wriggled a bit, making a frustrated noise as he realized that ‘a bit’ was the best he could do, but then he realized what was happening: the demon was stemming some of the blood flowing out of his throat. The grip was uncomfortably snug, yes, but it probably needed to be - and this was from a hand that could have squeezed Q’s entire neck to a grisly, bloody pulp without effort. The demon’s touch was almost painfully hot, however, and Q wriggled more and let out a mewl of complaint without consciously giving his vocal cords permission to do so. Surprisingly, the heat seemed to dim not long after - or perhaps Q’s chilled skin just grew accustomed to it. 

“So,” the demon went on, pleasant as you please, “It seems like we might be at a bit of an impasse here.”

“You’re just delaying the inevitable,” Auric snarled back, clearly furious that this wasn’t going as planned. 

‘ _Join the club_ ,’ Q wanted to retort, but instead just focused on staying calm. The lightheaded feeling was getting worse, and once again the ties on his wrists were the only thing keeping him from falling off the table and into a heap on the floor. Well, perhaps the demon’s grip on his neck was also keeping him in place, but the more he thought on that, the more his brain refused to compute the situation. Yes, it was safe to say that this entire day was not going as planned. 

“Am I really, though?” the demon condescended. There was perhaps too much… _knowing_ … in that voice, however, and Q twitched a little as he heard it. Right now, Q’s left cheek was pressed against the table, meaning his face was turned away from the demon, but suddenly he desperately wanted to know what expression James was wearing, because it sounded a bit like- “Because I really think that you’ve bitten off more than you can chew with this situation. Am I right, Summoner?” Q knew that he was being talked to because the demon thumped his thumb against the back of Q’s neck, and yes, the demon’s voice sounded entirely too knowledgeable. By now, it was impossible to tell if that was a good thing or a bad thing. The wing above Q shifted a little bit, and suddenly the voice was coming from closer; the hand around Q’s neck tightened faintly as the demon leaned over him to murmur, “You know how this ritual actually works, don’t you?” The low purr brought the scent of a brushfire with it, and Q just saw the edges of a smile at the furthest range of his vision. He sucked in a little breath.

“Stop talking to him!” Auric raged, and Q could see past the wing just enough to note that Auric had drawn his gun again. “He’s not important - not anymore.”

“Well, someone certainly drew this circle - and it wasn't any of you louts,” James opined frankly, still sounding like he was leaning entirely too close to Q’s head. The demon added shrewdly, “I can also see chalk all over this one’s hands. Care to explain that?”

Auric spluttered. It would have been amusing if the situation wasn’t so dire. 

The demon chuckled. “I’ll just ask him myself then.” Q’s breath caught as he realized that he was about to go from physical contact with a demon to being in a conversation with one. He smelled that brushfire breath again, felt the hand shift a little bit more on his neck; it made Q cough and choke a little, pain sparking as the demon got his fingertips pressed more fully against the wound. “Was that your work on the circle, bait-named-Q?” the demon asked congenially. 

While Auric hollered some more, Q blinked rapidly, unsure if his brain was slow because of blood-loss or because of all the terrifying twists and turns today had taken. Somehow, though, he managed to draw in a semi-even breath and admit on the exhale, “Yes.”

The demon leaned a bit further over him, close enough that even Q’s nearsighted eyes could pick out a handsome, for-all-intents-and-purposes-friendly smile. “Fantastic work,” he was applauded. Then the demon’s smile grew a bit more wicked as the demon added, “Much better than the last Summoner who tried this with me. If you’d been on the outside of the circle like you were supposed to be, I’d perhaps have not even managed to kill you like I did her.” Q felt his blood run cold, but then the demon leaned back out of his range of vision - very quickly. 

The reason for the demon’s sharp movement came a second later: there was a harrowing crack of sound, a gun being discharged in an enclosed space. Q flinched, but everything around him was moving, and it wasn’t until a few moments later that he realized that Auric had just shot at them - but the demon had moved a wing in the way. It was all very fast and overwhelming, and Q didn’t exactly have the best seat in the house to see it all. If anything, the demon’s hand was pressing his head down even harder to the table, and now James’ wings were blocking out almost everything.

“Just let him die already!!” Auric shrieked, sounding more monstrous than a demon himself by this point. 

“Or what? You’ll shoot him yourself?” Belatedly, Q wondered if the bullet had perhaps been meant for him… and the demon had blocked it. James’ wings were certainly cloaked all around them now, and apparently were rather impenetrable. “That’s hardly sporting of you.”

“You have to do as I say. Step away from him - or kill him.”

“I’d really rather not,” James replied, still polite. Then he startled Q by adding, “You see, it’s not often that I get called up by something who has both the skill to set up such a powerful circle - and also looks good bent over a table.” 

Q had thought he wouldn’t be able to blush in this situation, given his current state of blood loss, but somehow he felt his cheeks heat. The demon’s thumb, pressed against his nape, rubbed what felt like a soothing little pattern against the protruding knobs of Q’s vertebrae. 

“ _I_ called you here!” Auric insisted. Someone - probably Ernst, the Glyphist - protested quietly that they’d all helped, but he was ignored. “And now that the circle is completed, stop being such a smarmy bastard-”

“I am really, really getting sick of this arsewipe,” James murmured quietly to himself, but with just enough volume that Q could hear. Q felt something touch him from multiple angles, and it took a startled moment to realize that the demon was probably pulling his wings in closer. It was impossible to shuffle out of their way, and Q huffed out a little noise as he realized he’d have to tolerate it. “Please tell me you’re not friends?”

Struggling to find words past the haziness in his head and the necessary pressure around his neck, Q gave his throat a rough clear but nonetheless answered the question, “Does it look like I am?”

The demon’s chuckle was low and sweet, like warm velvet brushing against Q’s ear. “Touché. In that case, I think I should stop wasting time.”

Before Q could ask what the hell that meant, he heard a sharp rustle under the table, and then suddenly a tug and release against his bound wrists - the bindings being severed without warning. The only explanation was that the demon had used his tail to do that, which wasn’t really very comforting, because it meant this demon had a tail that terminated in a razorblade or something. There had been no sawing, no straining, just a sudden severing, and suddenly Q’s arms were no longer keeping him stretched over the table. He tumbled backwards, and the demon - being a demon - chose then to release him. With nothing stopping him, Q was quickly in a painful, ignominious heap on the floor. “Fuck!” he shouted loudly enough to echo. 

“You look like someone who doesn’t swear much,” James opined, and although Q didn’t have his glasses to pick out details, he was still 90% sure the demon was smirking down at him, “so I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“What are you doing?” Auric demanded from where he still stood outside the circle. 

While Q quickly lifted a hand of his own (numb from the bindings, but functional) to try and slow the bleeding from his neck, James answered, “Getting some facts straight.” Q had managed to get up onto his knees by this point, wincing and swaying dizzily, so when he felt something brush against him, he didn’t have any energy to spare on being startled. It was the demon’s tail, looping loosely around Q like a parody of a Summoner’s circle. “So tell me, Summoner,” James was clearly talking just to Q now, “Do you know exactly what kind of ritual this is?”

“I don’t know,” Q grumped, then realized that his sarcasm might not serve him well here, so he elaborated, “because everything has gone so tits up that it’s unrecognizable.”

That must have been the right answer, because the demon started laughing. Stepping forward and away from the table, the demon rested a hand on Q’s head - a gesture that should have been threatening but wasn’t, the touch almost gentle. “So you know how a _noster nostri_ ritual is supposed to go then, hm?”

Feeling incredibly tired, Q just closed his eyes and nodded. Despite his best efforts, he could feel blood seeping past his fingers. He didn’t even realize that the demon had crouched down until Auric was shouting obscenities again, and then there was a clicking in front of Q’s nose - he opened his eyes to find that the demon had snapped his fingers to get Q’s attention. The demon was squatting right in front of him, close enough for even Q’s nearsighted eyes to pick up the lopsided smile, the too-blue eyes. The demon’s other hand held, surprisingly enough, a set of glasses. When Q took them with a puzzled frown, the demon’s smile grew more Cheshire, and the creature’s long tail slithered back and forth behind it like a cat preparing to hunt. “Impressive. So you know that you’re on the wrong side of the circle, right?” the demon went on teasingly.

Somehow, Q had the necessary bravery to glower - or perhaps he’d finally reached the stage where he didn’t give a fuck if he was making faces at a deadly Higher Demon. “Oh, no, this was my plan all along,” Q snarked as he settled his glasses one his face one-handed, at that point also realizing that the truth-curse had worn off - finally, “Call up a demon and then wait for it _inside_ my own fucking protective circle. And I cut up my own back and slashed my own throat, too, just for added excitement.” God, it felt good to lie, if only sarcastically. 

There was that chuckle again, such a startlingly pleasant sound from such a generally unpleasant creature. “A real adrenaline-junky,” the demon drawled, with a generous dose of sarcasm of his own. Then, unexpectedly, said demon began unravelling his tie, pulling it loose from around his neck while Auric and co. continued to squawk indignantly in the background and Q just stared. “How about you and I make a deal?” the demon wheedled, and when Q made a face of distrust, the demon merely kept talking, while also pulling a handkerchief out of his pocket. He seemed unconcerned by the blood still smeared all over one of his hands. “I think you’ve more than earned it - if nothing else, this is the most entertainment I’ve had in eons, and it’s been even longer since I’ve been impressed.”

“Really?” Q couldn’t help but ask. The blood-loss really was doing a number on his intellect - or maybe just his brain-to-mouth filter. “You’re impressed?”

“Well, certainly not by the quartet of stupidity out there.” More indignant outrage. “But yes - as someone who’s been dragged into a ritual or two before, I can say with certainty that you’ve got talent, kid.”

Q wrinkled his nose, and once again he spoke without any discernible filter, “I’m not a kid.”

“You’re adorable,” was the only response James gave, sounding incongruously fond. Before Q could rebuke that assessment, the demon reached forward, one hand catching Q’s chin at almost the same time that the demon’s long tail slithered forward - without warning, Q’s right wrist was enwrapped, and he was so busy worrying about how sharp that tail had to be that he didn’t notice until it was too late that the tail was pulling his hand away from his bleeding neck.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (O.O) Oh look, a cliffhanger... how did that get here...? Again... 
> 
> Hope everyone is enjoying James' particularly brand of sass!


	3. Guns in Their Hands

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When you summon a demon correctly, you control it - when idiots badly summon a demon like James, though, he decides who he wants to side with. And he's about to make a very definitive choice...
> 
> Or the chapter that was almost called: "Scary Little Things That We Are."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter warnings for explicit gore and violence! If you haven't guessed already, this cannot end in sunshine and roses - not when psychopaths like Auric are involved... or demons like James. Also, look for a link at the end to fanart... ;)

Q made a yelp of panic even as someone outside the circle cheered (no doubt pleased that the demon finally seemed interested in letting his ‘bait’ bleed out), but all of those noises died down into bewilderment as the demon pressed the folded handkerchief firmly to Q’s wound. The tie was then looped around Q’s neck, holding the handkerchief in place as the demon knotted everything tightly. “Too tight?” James asked, faux-innocently. 

“Yes, but I imagine that’s the point,” Q muttered, still trying to fathom this situation. The hand that had previously been holding his chin patted his cheek, and there was that grin again, revealing deceptively human-looking teeth. Were it not for the canopy of wings and the tail still braceletting Q’s wrist, he’d think he was looking at a very normal gentleman. 

Then that hand was gripping Q’s chin again, even more firmly this time, preventing Q from turning his head or looking at anything but the demon’s roguish features in front of him. All of the yelling in the background seemed to fade away as James spoke in calm murmur, “Now, boffin, if you can answer me one question, you’ll have me truly impressed - and I might just reward you for that.” Usually, Q would have been wary of a demon’s ‘rewards,’ but Q had already given up on anything being predictable tonight. “Here’s my question: Where is the one weakness in this circle?”

It felt like a trap. Q frowned and lifted his free hand to grab James’ wrist, trying and failing to wrest his head free. “There isn’t one,” he maintained stubbornly, because like hell he’d make a circle with a weakness. 

Auric tried to shoot Q again. The demon barely glanced aside before circling up his wings to block the bullet, so it was from within a cocoon of darkness that the demon gave Q’s head a little shake. “You’re thinking too narrowly,” James chided, even as there was the odd noise of another bullet ricocheting off an impenetrable wing. Someone yelped, and Q secretly hoped that the deflected bullet had hit someone. “I already applauded you on your flawless circle. So tell me: Where is the weakness?”

“This is a riddle, isn’t it?” Q still had the energy to glower.

“I’m a bit too lazy to make riddles, actually. I’m not that kind of demon. Think of this as a… skills test.”

James’ blue eyes were so intense, Q found it hard to remember how to blink now that the demon was leaning in close. Within the shadow of the demon’s wings, James’ blue eyes glowed almost white, and for some reason Q couldn’t tell beneath one blink and the next whether the demon’s pupils were round or vertically slitted. Somehow, though, while mesmerized by those eyes, something in Q’s brain relaxed and then seemed to snap into place. “My blood,” he blurted suddenly. Immediately going into deep thought, blinking rapidly, the spell was broken. Still, Q didn’t miss the demon’s crooked smile, as if pleased that Q had figured this out. Q kept babbling even while someone started shouting obscenities in the background, “When Ernst - the Glyphist who… who carved the ritual glyphs into my back.” Just saying it out loud made the cuts pulse new with pain, and Q started shaking. The demon’s hold on his chin and wrist suddenly became the most stable things in Q’s world, along with the intense weight of James’ gaze. “He didn’t clean off his hands, and he dripped my blood all the way out…” Q scrambled around in his brain, looking up at the ceiling as he brought up an image of the scene again. When he closed his eyes, he was able to say with certainty, “At my 5 o’clock, there’s blood that trails from within my circle to outside of it. I tried to tell them that that was bad-”

“But they didn’t listen? Not surprised,” James said, then the demon unexpectedly leaned forward. Q felt warm, dry breath and then lips against his hair, and a murmured, “Good boy. You've impressed me.” 

While Q was left stunned by the declaration - and trying to come to terms with the fact that it had made him feel all warm and fuzzy inside, because not even his parents had ever, ever said that to him - James withdrew and stood. His wings withdrew, leaving the world brighter and colder around Q, but the lack of gunfire was explained as James called out boredly, “Finally out of bullets, you pathetic little shitstain?” 

That predictably set Auric off to new heights of angry hysteria. Q, lifting a hand to stabilize the makeshift bandage around his neck (not a perfect solution to the problem, but far more than Q could have ever hoped for), shuffled around to get a proper look at the situation. Auric was fuming, gun at his side, while his three compatriots were now grouped off to one side - they looked as though they didn’t know how to feel about this, although they were laughing at Auric at least a little bit. However, Q noticed that Ernst grew a bit troubled - and then a bit pale - as James walked forward and a bit to Auric’s right instead of directly towards him. No one else had heard Q’s answer, but Ernst was perhaps recollecting the blood he’d trailed now. 

“What are you doing?” Auric demanded, still trying to look intimidating. He and James were of a height, but the fact that the demon had fucking _wings_ made any human in the room looked dwarfed. 

Ignoring Auric, James (his back to Q) stretched his tail out until it was like a curious snake poking towards the kneeling boffin. Q cringed back a bit but was too fatigued to actually scuttle backwards, even as he saw the honed, almost knife-life edges of the spade-shaped tail-tip. James merely brushed Q’s knee with the flat of it, though. “Here, Q?” the demon asked. 

Still unable to comprehend why James was playing this game, but seeing no reason to argue, Q just nodded, cleared his throat painfully, and said, “Yes. The activation of the circle would have likely made it invisible, though.” A circle as detailed as Q’s would do its best to hide imperfections. 

“What are you talking about?” Now Auric was scuttling to the side, so that he could look around James and demand answers from a weaker target: Q. But then the demon idly stretched out one wing, wordlessly blocking Auric’s range of vision. Q found himself giggling a bit hysterically at how petty that was, and how furious it made Auric. 

Getting a bit bolder (or more lightheaded and dizzy, it was hard to tell), Q said just to James, “You already knew about the blood on the circle, didn’t you?”

“I did,” the demon admitted shamelessly. “Although it says something about the skill of your work that the blood didn’t contaminate the glyphs beyond repair. Usually, if I smell blood burning on an activating glyph, I expect it all to either blow up in the Summoner’s face, or shatter like glass the second I touch it.” 

“You attacked another section of the circle,” Q realized, then asked a bit less certainly, “On purpose?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Ending the game too early isn’t much fun, now is it?” was the teasing answer, and now all of the cronies that Q could see were looking very, very pale. James turned a bit, so that Q could see him in profile, and suddenly Q realized something disturbing: James’ left hand was more or less coated in Q’s blood. Blood… was not something a Summoner ever wanted to give a demon to play with. James was regarding his red-smeared hand now, a contemplative look on his face as he flexed his fingers. “Plus, your circle really is _damn_ strong, and I figured I’d need a bit of help to fuck it up,” James concluded with a shrug, and then fisted his hand and put his entire bodyweight behind a punch that immediately had the circle flaring like a fiery golden wall. 

The sound from James’ earlier attack on the circle was nothing compared to this. Now the air was filled with the sound of almost sentient screaming - like the horrifying noise of horses in a barn fire - and it hit the sternum with enough of a shockwave to have Q crumpling in on himself. He made a noise of pain that he couldn’t even hear over the tumult. He suspected that he had it better than Auric and the others, though, because even as James hit the wall of prohibitive magic again, Q could feel an echoing tingle in his own arm - his body linking to the magic, like sensing like. It was massively disorienting, actually, and suddenly it became hard to keep from keeling over, because everything was reacting to everything: Q’s magic in the circle sensed its master’s blood, a kindred power, even as it naturally reacted negatively to the demon so near. The fact that bits of Q’s blood were both inside and outside of the circle was also disorienting the magic, as it didn’t know how to compute its master in two places. In many ways, glyph work and Summoning was like computer coding - and James was now capitalizing on a paradox that Ernst had stupidly entered into the program. 

Ultimately, the circle had never been meant to deny the will of its maker, so when James brought his hand down, down towards the chalk marks on the floor, the magic quieted instead of fighting harder to keep him away. Belatedly, Auric and co. seemed to realize what was happening, but by then it was too late - James had dragged a blood-covered fingertip across the floor and smudged out a line. Usually, the circle’s magic would have kept him from getting close enough to touch, like two magnets repelling each other’s like poles, but Q’s blood was the ticket in. Ernst was the first to make a run for the door, because as a Glyphist like Q, he was fully aware that one broken line could make a lot of difference.

A _hell_ of a lot of difference.

Even Ernst with this headstart wasn’t fast enough to make it to the door before James was out of the summoning circle. The demon may as well have just teleported for how quickly he went from inside the ring to halfway across the room, wings tight to his back now as if to streamline himself. Q just watched, dazed, and couldn’t bring himself to feel much besides vindicated approval as James reached Ernst… and the latter just seemed to drop. Q couldn’t see any details, what with the demon in the way. When James turned around, though, his other hand had blood on it now, even if the demon’s glamour showed only blunt, human-shaped fingertips beneath the red coating. The hedgewitch, Hugo, was next, his little shriek of “Oh my god!” drawing the demon’s attention like the cry of something small and tasty. Hugo was behind James, but the demon didn’t need to turn around to pinpoint the source of the sound, apparently, because the long tail lashed out with frankly horrific speed. One only needed so much accuracy with a weapon like that - one whiplike movement and Hugo was keeling over with a scream, gushing blood from a vicious rip across his front. Q looked away before he could determine whether or not he was seeing intestines spilling out through Hugo’s fingers. Because he turned his head, though, Q was the first to see Julius recovering, calling forth fire between his palms. “James!” Q shouted without thinking. 

The demon spun, eyes momentarily widening a tick, but he only got one hand up - instead of a wing - by the time Julius let his fireball fly. There was a sound like many sheets of thick paper tearing, combined with the hungry crackling of magical fire, but James batted the flames aside before they could reach his face. The hand previously coated in Q’s blood was now inky black and clawed, the fire having torn the glamour away nearly to James’ elbow, and the demon looked… peeved. “Do you realize,” James said, flexing his hand, eyeing the bared talons, “how insulting it is to throw mundane fire at a denizen of Hell?”

Auric seemed to have finally recovered himself, though, and managed to shriek a melodramatic, “Try this on for size then!” before James could exact retribution on the horrified Julius. A crackle of lightning shaded faintly purple leaped from Auric’s hand (he’d finally just dropped that damned gun) towards James, forcing the demon to split his attention. Julius and Auric might have cheated off nerds like Q in many of their book-based classes, but they had some magical power to them and were used to working as a team to take down prey. James started to look hard pressed as he worked against the two of them. 

At that point, Q would have made his escape. He actually went so far as it stumble to his feet and make his way in the direction of the door, no one even looking his way, far too focused on the fight at hand. When he passed Hugo (who’d stopped screaming) and looked down to see sightless eyes staring down at spilled, cooling guts, Q just about retched and staggered faster. 

But for some reason, when he reached the door… he didn’t even put his hand on the knob. Instead, he leaned against the door as if tired, thinking. Behind him, the fight’s outcome was uncertain - because while James was undoubtedly powerful, he’d used up a lot of magic against Q’s summoning circle. He’d had Q’s blood to help him, yes, but he’d still cracked a hole in a major working of magic, and that would weaken even a Higher Demon for a while. Auric and Julius, on the other hand, were fresh and ready for a fight, and were mages in their prime. 

And… the demon had basically saved Q’s life when it could have just killed him.

Sighing, Q glanced around, neck and back throbbing painfully with every breath. He had precious little power left - or life in general, the bandage on his neck not perfect - but one thing Q had loved about being a Glyphist was that they could do a lot with a little. His eyes spied Auric’s gun, tossed aside when it had run out of bullets. Q spotted an empty shell casing not far off. 

“Today is already full of stupid ideas,” Q sighed to himself while there were more sounds of magic blasting in the room behind him, “What’s one more?” And with that he pushed himself away from the door, swaying and shuffling his way to the spent bullet and the empty gun. Once he had them both, he pressed his fingertips to one of the many smears of wet blood on himself, and started etching out lines and infusing them with what little power he had left. 

When Q finished, he was sweating and panting, barely able to stay up even on his hands and knees. When he lifted his head, however, he saw that James’ glamour had been ripped away on both arms nearly to his shoulders, suit shredded, and even his previously impenetrable wings looked charred in places. His bloodied tail was keeping Auric and Julius at a distance, though. 

Q looked down at the gun in front of him, considered his own shaking arms, and then muttered, “Screw it,” before raising his voice and shouting, “James, catch!” He picked up the gun and hurled it without another thought.

Thankfully, the demon was alert enough to hear his name (fake name?) being called, and twisted in surprise. Auric chose then to let off another crackling bolt of power, but James arched a wing like a shield - it must have still hurt, because James saw him snarl in pain, but at the same time one of the demon’s hands snapped out and caught Q’s clumsy throw. When James frowned at the weapon (perhaps seeing the precise lines of blood magically burned into it, sealed by magic in a far more professional way than the blood in the circle had been), Q just called out again, “There’s only one shot. I hope you know how to use that.”

In the shadow of his wing, James’ eyes seemed to glow hotter. There was another blast of fire from Julius before James could respond in any way, but the demon’s close-lipped, chilling smile was answer enough. Even as he tucked his wings away behind his back, the blond-haired demon was holding the gun in a capable, two-handed grip. Everything felt like it was moving in slow-motion, and Q would have liked to just watch James line the weapon up and fire, because damn if Q didn’t like to watch his own magical inventions at work. 

Unfortunately, Q had his own problems. While James turned to the biggest threat - Auric - Julius was turning to Q, forgotten no more. 

“You should be dead already,” Julius snarled, and started drawing fire into his hands again, but at a newer, more vulnerable target. James was busy, and he only one bullet besides - a glance told Q that the demon was lining up the gun with Auric now, while Auric scrambled to switch from offensive to defensive magic. 

The world still moving slowly, as if the nearness of death had made even time pause, Q just looked back at Julius. He was too tired to be scared. 

He’d also thought ahead. 

A glyphist could do a lot with a little. 

Faster than Julius could built up a fireball, Q simply raised one hand. It was empty, and he’d done his best to wipe it clean of blood - all except the necessary lines that he’d drawn against his skin. Said lines flared with magic now, fusing to his flesh as he folded three fingers to his palm, leaving his thumb and index extended in the shape of a gun. At the same time that there was a crackling, resounding boom of sound from the handgun in James’ possession (even a spent shell-casing had a lot of power when you filled it up with the right portions of magic - especially since it only needed to work for a second), Q dropped the ‘hammer’ of his thumb, muttering, “And you should know that you never really disarm a glyphyst so long as they have to hands to work with.” The blood-painted glyphs on Q’s knuckles and fingers flared so brightly that it burned, but Q was in too much pain already to feel it, and he didn’t even blink as a laser of white-gold light snapped free from the tip of his index finger. His aim was terrible, but when Julius had turned to him, he’d made a good target of himself, and Q was only aiming for the center of mass anyway.

Julius’ fireball turned to smoke as its wielder was shot through the stomach, the projectile of pure magic going right through him. Q had barely had enough magic to split between this and James’ bullet, but thankfully, Q understood physics: when the same amount of force was applied over a smaller area, it packed a significantly larger punch. That was why bullets could do so much damage despite their small size - and why Q didn’t need much to punch a hole right out of his attacker’s back. 

In shock, Julius fell to his knees. In the background, it looked like Auric was still miraculously unharmed until he suddenly toppled right over - and closer inspection showed him missing one eye. “So you know how to use a gun. How fortuitous,” Q found himself saying into the ensuing silence. He sank back to sit tiredly on his heels.

“And so do you, apparently.” The demon turned, eyeing Q’s handiwork with raised eyebrows. “Left-handed.”

Q had indeed glyphed his left hand, but that was more because he didn’t want to damage his dominant right hand - and because he’d have messed up all the lines if he’d tried writing with his left hand on his right. At the moment, his left hand was shaking like it was palsied, and the glyphs were actually smoking against his skin. “Shit,” he sighed. 

For a moment James just regarded him placidly, blue eyes considering. Then he looked down at his own unkempt appearance, grimaced, and gave his shoulders a purposeful sort of roll - in response, his glamour gave a flicker, and the ruined suit-jacket was replaced by just a white button-down. Q blinked and then the demon had a shoulder holster for his new gun, too, and the blue-eyed monster smiled pleasantly while tucking the weapon away beneath his left arm. It took a few flexes of his hands to get the glamour back in place over his inky talons, though. Only once he was content with his appearance did James look up at Q again, voice quiet and candid as he said, “You know that there are only two ways for this to end, right?”

Exhaling slowly, Q nodded. His whole body felt heavy, shaky, and cold, but his voice was steady as he replied, “The _noster nostri_ ritual is set up so that either the mage binds the demon to their will, or dies trying, thus banishing the demon back to its realm. And sadly-” Q glanced at the summoning circle, then closed his eyes and checked in with his own magic, depleted as it was. “-I think that those psychopathic idiots got the ritual just right enough for that to be true.”

“That’s the conclusion I was drawing myself,” James confirmed with a nod. 

“Of course, they fucked up everything else,” Q kept babbling, because it felt like a good way to delay the inevitable. There was no escape for James except to kill Q, although it put Q’s mind at ease to know that even that would simply send the demon back to Hell, not set him loose. “You know, they hit me with with a truth-curse, but still didn’t bother listening to me? If they’d given me half a chance instead of-” Q raised a hand involuntarily to his throat, but dropped it before he touched the make-shift bandage. He didn’t want to feel how wet with blood it must be by now. Shivering, Q went on doggedly, “-I could have told them that the person who bleeds needs to also be the person on the outside of the circle, doing the binding.”

“Yes, it is rather a pity that they fixated so much on this bait idea,” the demon mused. He started wandering around a bit - not getting closer to Q, but perhaps checking that every enemy was down. Since Julius had toppled over, Q’s ‘bullet’ being more accurate than anticipated, the room was full of nothing living but Q and James. And Q was surprisingly okay with that… perhaps because he’d been in shock before the real fighting had even begun. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, I love being lured in by virgins as much as the next demon-”

Q had just enough energy left to get offended. “Hey!”

The demon turned away, but not before Q got a flash of a cheeky smile. Then, however, the demon began wandering towards the summoning circle. He kept talking idly, as if he were just out for a stroll, “-But it was pretty obvious that they hadn’t a bloody clue what they were doing. You seem to, though.”

“And look where it’s gotten me,” Q said with a shrug that led to a wince. He lifted a hand to his forehead, dizzy, but since it was his right hand, there was blood on the fingertips - which he now smeared on his forehead. Oh well, he had to be quite a sight already anyway. “I suppose that this is what happens when you’re too good at what you do.”

Chuckling, James actually stepped over the edge of the circle, although it hardly mattered now - it had been broken, the circuit no longer continuous and thus not alive with entrapping magics. “I hear you on that. I have the same problem myself, in fact.”

Conversing with a demon should have been strange, but this felt almost natural. It helped that James was acting very human, hands in pockets again, wings tucked closer to his back to be slightly less noticeable. “Ah, yes. I suppose you must be quite popular, if you’ve been called out by this same ritual before.”

Fully inside the circle now, James muttered sulkily, "And probably will be again." He shuffled his wings a bit like a bird resettling its feathers, and seemed to consider the space around him. Only then did he turn to look at Q over his shoulder, changing the topic with faux innocence, “You know, this is really a very durable summoning circle, and I barely damaged it at all getting out of it.”

Q frowned. “What are you saying?”

The demon’s smile put crow’s-feet at the corner of the one eye Q could see in profile. “It’s another riddle, Q. Figure it out and I might reward you.”

“I’d have to be alive for a reward.”

“Exactly.”

For the span of five heartbeats, Q just knelt where he was, blinking in bewilderment and then surprise as the meaning behind James’ words slipped in. “You’re…? You’re not going to kill me then?”

“Where would be the fun in that?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Q drawled sardonically, “You’d be _free,_ for one, instead of bound to me.”

“Yes, but I’d also be in Hell again, waiting for the next idiot to drag me up here,” James grumbled, finally turning around to face Q. He half-spread his wings and looked rather intimidating - especially as he approached just to the edge of the circle. From here, he could have reached out with that razor-tipped tail and finished the job that Auric’s knife had started. Instead, the demon kept all of himself within the circle, and declared, “If I’m going to be bound to someone on earth, it may as well be someone with a bit of talent and common-sense.” 

Just staring now, wondering if he’d moved to the stage of dying where hallucinations happened, Q responded numbly, “So… you’re just going to… let me complete the circle? Like in a real _noster nostri_ ritual?”

“Yes,” James nodded patiently. Then he shrugged and said more bluffly, “Of course, just like in a real _noster nostri_ ritual, you might bleed out or run out of power before you succeed. So I’m not exactly giving you a handout. You still have to earn it.”

“O-Okay,” Q said, still gobsmacked. However, after another longer moment of the two of them just staring at one another, Q tried to get up. God, but he was weak. He realized quickly that getting all the way to his feet wasn’t going to happen, and settled for crawling. 

Strangely enough, instead of taunting him, the demon made some soft coaxing noises, even soothing, “There you go, love. Easy,” in a tone almost too low to register words. Something about the unexpectedness of the kindness had Q’s eyes getting hot and wet - or maybe it was the pain that wrung a little sob out of him as he finally dragged himself to the edge of the circle. There were spatters of his own blood here, drying to a rusty color, and a clear break in the summoning circle. He considered closing it again with blood, but at the last moment felt a little sting of pride, and instead looked around… there. There was a piece of discarded chalk. The demon said nothing, but made a slight noise of impressed surprise when Q crawled laboriously to the chalk. That noise became one of wordless approval then Q’s intentions became clear, the Summoner returning to the break in the circle with the piece of chalk clutched in his hand. Today had gone royally tits-up, but Q still had some professional pride. 

Feeling supremely woozy now, shivers chasing themselves almost constantly up and down his spine, Q looked up at the demon one last time. With Q kneeling and James standing, the former could have reached out and touched James’ knee with a hand - likewise, the demon could have escaped or killed him with barely an ounce of effort. Instead, faintly-glowing blue eyes simply looked down at Q mildly, and if there was a spark of mischief hidden at the corner of the demon’s mouth, Q was too tired to ponder it for long. “Am I making an atrocious decision here?” Q nonetheless asked, with his last remaining bit of humor.

The spark of mischief became a lopsided grin; the faint glow became a delighted pale fire behind James’ blue irises. “I suppose that depends,” James replied, glancing significantly at Q’s glyph-burned left hand, “Do you have more tricks like that up your sleeve? Because if you do, it might be very difficult for me to pull one over on you, scary little thing that you are.” And then the demon winked, and Q couldn’t help but remember the comment about him looking good bent over a table. 

Still looking up at the demon, Q ultimately concluded with a little puff of a sigh, “Yup. This is definitely a stupendously bad idea.”

But he re-drew the last line of the summoning circle anyway, watching it flare to life as it was made whole once more. The power-drain was immediate and immense, and Q gasped. He didn’t remember if he even hit the floor before everything went black, but he remembered everything within the circle turning black and gold - except for two sky-blue eyes.

~^~

Q woke up cold. Releasing an involuntary noise of complaint, he shivered and tried to lift heavy eyelids, if only to look around and figure out where he was. He felt heavy and groggy, and was vaguely aware of the fact that he was on his stomach. Just as various pains began to seep into his awareness, he tried to push himself up - an almost searingly hot touch to his left forearm stopped him. Hissing, Q finally got his eyes open. Sans glasses, most things were fuzzy, but he saw a tanned, scarred hand curled around his arm. At the same time, though, the heat faded into something more bearable - or else Q’s chilled skin just got used to it.

That triggered a familiar memory, which in turn led to a cascade of more recollections. Q’s gaze immediately widened, and he belatedly took in the blurry outlines of a hospital bed railing, bandages covering his left hand from fingertips to wrist, and a blond-haired man in a three-piece suit connected to the hand touching him. There was the faintest hint of a gun holster showing past the jacket - but no demonic wings or tail. Q frowned and tried to compute this even as his ears took in the faint beeping of medical machines.

“Sorry.” James didn’t sound particularly sorry, but he gave Q’s forearm a squeeze, indicating that he was probably talking about his touch. “I’m used to a place and people that run a lot hotter.” 

“Where am I?”

“A hospital. A good Samaritan called the police and an ambulance upon finding you collapsed in that basement.” Q’s eyesight was pretty bad, but still good enough to catch the demon’s smile. “A totally human good Samaritan named James Bond. He was in the neighborhood and heard strange noises. He came to investigate just in time to find you bleeding out on the floor, but not in time to stop a demon from rampaging and killing your classmates.” The demon’s hand was still on Q’s arm, and somehow the delightful, seeping warmth of his touch was stronger than Q’s fear. Or else it was the drugs. Q was pretty sure that he was drugged to the gills, which made it difficult to worry about the talons hidden beneath James’ glamour. The demon went on with his fabricated narrative, “Thankfully, you stayed conscious long enough to explain the situation to me.”

“And…?” Shit, but his throat hurt. Q gave it a clear and then continued, voice still reedy, “And what did I tell you?”

James idly stroked his hand up to Q’s elbow and back down to the edges of the bandages. “That those dastardly boys had been dabbling in summoning - a foul and dangerous practice-” Q couldn’t help but huff and James grinned before continuing, “-And they’d kidnapped you as a sacrifice. Their plan worked at first, but as most summonings go, things went awry as soon as the demon appeared. The circle was so damaged by the time I arrived that no one is even able to tell what ritual they were using.”

“What a pity,” Q deadpanned, but relaxed a little. Summoning was quite illegal, but sometimes the city called in experts who might have been able to put the pieces together - and find clues in the ritual that painted a different story than what James was telling. “I have you to thank as my salvation then?”

That made James scoff, and he broke character to mutter, “If I’m your salvation, then welcome to Hell,” and then he chuckled. Just like any other time the demon had laughed, Q was struck by how incongruously pleasant the sound was. Usually, there was nothing pleasant about demons, but James was full of surprises. “But yes, this gallant stranger saved your life and hasn’t left your side since. The nurses think I’m quite a saint.” James sounded insufferably smug, so much so that Q groaned and turned his face down into the hospital bed.

“Hey now, don’t smother yourself,” James chided, and only then did he let go of Q’s arm - to touch his head instead, a brush of fingers to Q’s ear and hair that got him to reluctantly turn his face to James again. The demon was leaning forward, and looked just a bit excited - the expression of a fox scenting a hare after a long winter, or a daredevil approaching the edge of a high cliff. “If you die, I get shuffled back to the boredom of Hell. I’d rather have some excitement first.”

Perhaps it was the drugs making him bold, or his tongue loose, but Q immediately raised one eyebrow and replied incredulously, “Do I look exciting to you?”

“Maybe not right now, but in the last twenty-four hours, your life was so exciting that it included kidnapping, gunfights, near-death experiences, and summoning a dashing Duke of Hell.”

Q was beginning to realize that James had something of an ego. Unable to compute all of that at the moment, Q just made another little whining noise and sighed, “Good god, what have I signed myself up for?”

The demon stroked Q’s head, smoothing down dark tangles of hair. “Just a slightly more thrilling lifestyle. Don’t worry, I don’t have world domination in mind,” James assured. “Too tedious. And while you look like you might be the responsible type, I most certainly am not, and if you dominate a world, you’re supposed to govern it afterwards.”

Q wasn’t sure what disturbed him more: that James had put this much forethought into world domination, or that he’d then discarded the idea simply because it required too much responsibility. The growing ache in Q’s neck, back, and left hand distracted him from thinking too much more on it, and he just moaned again by way of answer.

The hand in his hair momentarily pause at the sound, but then gave another pet - this one firmer, fingers sinking gently but deeply into Q’s mop of hair to scratch lightly at the boffin’s scalp. It was an unexpectedly compassionate gesture and caused Q’s eyes to involuntarily slip closed. Therefore, he missed when James’ other hand moved, pressing the button that would give Q another dose of painkillers. The drugs slipped unnoticed into the IV in Q’s other hand, soon beginning to blot out the pain. With the pain went consciousness, and the last things that Q remembered as he slipped into a soft, relief-filled dose was James murmuring, “I suppose that all can wait.” A thumb lightly stroked the shell of Q’s ear, gentle and careful as if the demon still had talons, and was trying not to hurt Q with them. “There’s just something about you that tells me you won’t stay out of trouble for long, and pardon me for wanting to stick around for the next party.”

Nurses and doctors came and went on their rounds - cooing over how adorable it was for Mr. Bond to be looking over the uni student he’d saved, checking on the sleeping Q, leaving assurances that Q’s back, neck, and even hand would heal. Everyone remained blissfully ignorant of the fact that they didn’t just have a businessman and a Glyphist in their ward, but instead very curious demon… and the Summoner who had earned both his interest and respect in one fell swoop. 

And through it all, James’ heart beat in tandem with Q’s - slow and relaxed, but still a mortal, human rhythm. James didn’t mind the sensation as much as he thought he would - perhaps because he knew that his heart would race alongside this Summoner’s, too, the next time excitement struck. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If anyone was curious/confused about how the _noster nostri_ ritual was supposed to go, here's a quick rundown:  
> It’s a one-person job, to test a Summoner’s mettle. Outside the circle, the Summoner carves the glyphs onto themselves [usually into their chest or wherever they can reach, although Q ended up with them on his back...]. They then drip blood inside the circle (carefully, no messes), which calls the demon; if their circle is good, it holds the demon. However, the doorway is open with stipulations: it is linked to the Summoner - this means that the Summoner has until they bleed out to deal with the demon, and it’s a battle of wills until that point. It ends one of three ways: either the Summoner gains control of the demon in time and has a faithful, massively powerful servant forever - the demons finds a weak spot in the circle and breaks out - or the Summoner bleeds to death, and the demon is sent back to hell as the gateway snaps shut. The glyph on Q’s back actually translates to: _‘Let this be the Summoner/controller of doorways.’_ Summoners are, in many ways, doorways/creators of doorways - so the glyphs look alike. 
> 
> If you want more notes on this AU, see one of my other/earlier author notes! I put a page up on my Wordpress with stuff that never quite made it into this AU :) I hope that everyone enjoyed this wild, gory ride... with it's sweet ending. Thanks to the ever lovely [santheweird](https://archiveofourown.org/users/santheweird/pseuds/santheweird) for leaving a comment on Ch 2 that gave me inspiration for some art as well - follow [this link](https://only1truthfanfiction.files.wordpress.com/2020/01/00q_fanart.jpg) if you want to see my attempt at drawing demon!James and his Summoner!Q!

**Author's Note:**

> A million and one thanks to [Roseforthethorns](https://archiveofourown.org/users/roseforthethorns/pseuds/roseforthethorns), who beta-read these chapters! And to anyone who has ever had to put up with me in a beta-reader situation, haha <3 
> 
> If anyone has questions about this AU, don't hesitate to comment! All authors know that only 10% of the world they imagine ends up on the page - and sometimes not in a totally understandable way... If you want to read all of my notes on this AU (or write in this AU yourself), go to [this wordpress page](https://only1truthfanfiction.wordpress.com/worldbuilding-of-if-magic-were-known/?preview_id=512&preview_nonce=d0b54ca328&_thumbnail_id=535&preview=true), where I've provided more of my current notes.


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